Tigers Score Only Six against Croton

When a football team such as Putnam Valley gets moved down from Class B to Class C, and they are having some success they begin feeling very confident and feel unbeatable. Then, meeting high-powered Class C teams such as Hastings and Croton, their confidence quickly depletes. After defeating Irvington last week at the homecoming game, the Tigers felt like they could give Croton a good fight and possibly win to grab a share of the league title. When the Tigers found out that Croton’s starting fullback would not play they were going into this game with their eyes on a league championship, but Croton would not let them off too easily.

During the week leading up to the final game the Tigers had a bunch of enjoyable practices and seemed extremely prepared for this game. “Monday was a fun day of conditioning, Tuesday and Wednesday were double practices of offense and defense, and Thursday was nasty outside so the coaches let us out early and we watched a lot film,” said tackle Gerardo Alvarez. “All together it was a fun week of practice and we were ready for this game.” Entering this game the Tigers sounded ready for Croton and they were ready to grab hold of this league and secure a top seed in the sectional playoffs.

From the opening kickoff until the final whistle Croton executed every play and were completely dominating Putnam Valley on all sides of the ball. The Tigers just could not get anything going and after the first quarter they were already down 21-0. “We gave up much too early, we were down 21-0 after the first quarter. After a start like that it’s tough to stay in the game, and stay positive,” said Marcus Givan. The team just gave up early and once they were down they knew they could not come back and when your team has that sort of attitude you will never get back into the game.

The Tigers were defeated 41-6, and were given their third loss of the season, finishing 3-3. With that Croton is the league champs and Putnam Valley will be facing and extremely tough opponent in Dobbs Ferry on Saturday in the first round of the playoffs. Once the Tigers got down they just gave up and let Croton do whatever they wanted and they never had a chance to win from the start.

Putnam Valley will need to put this game behind them as Saturday begins the playoffs and they really need to get prepared because Dobbs Ferry will be just as tough as Croton, if not tougher. “The second the Croton game ended were looking into next week” Givan said. “We play Dobbs, a team just as tough as Croton. We can’t give up yet, we have one more game to play” said Marcus Givan. Well as PV had hoped, the season will continue and they will be in the playoffs, and they will need to improve this week or Saturday will end their season.